GCR Task Force

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your excellent editorial  (“Dissident Voices Cannot Change the Facts”) in the Aug. 27 edition of The Alabama Baptist.

You and your staff do a tremendous job of keeping Alabama Baptists informed about crucial issues in Alabama, the Southern Baptist Convention and around the world.

We need your watchful eyes to alert us to the ever present and always malignant pro-gambling organizations attempting to take over our state.

I also appreciated the article that enlightened us on the percentage of Cooperative Program giving by the members of the Great Commission Resurgence Task Force.

It is apparent that the vast majority of the members come from churches that give less than 6 percent of their receipts to the Cooperative Program. In fact, only six members out of the entire group are from churches giving 6 percent or more.

The expenses of their meetings will be paid from Cooperative Program receipts, according to a conversation I had with an Executive Committee staff member.

The Cooperative Program budget was already printed prior to the action of the convention empowering the president to appoint the task force, and so some budgeted items will likely be reduced to enable these expenses to be paid.

I am also concerned that a Great Commission Resurgence Task Force would fail to include any members from the national or state Woman’s Missionary Unions. These ladies have prayed, promoted and given sacrificially to fulfill the Great Commission, and I wish they had been invited to the table.

I am also confused about why a seminary supported by Cooperative Program funds would schedule a foul-mouthed, beer-drinking, non-Baptist preacher to speak at their events and at their expense.

I am not bothered by the fact that he’s not Baptist, but I do not understand why we would want our young preachers to use him as a role model. Do we not have young preachers who have a passion for God and for righteousness that could be used?

Thank you again for your courage and your conviction and may your tribe increase.

Pastor Mike Shaw
First Baptist Church, Pelham